Hi,
The print quality setting is only used when you remotely print a file (like a Word document or a picture) to a new PDF file. So. this setting would only apply if you use the Windows API.
The "Utility_Print_PDF" command prints an already existing PDF file to a physical printer (or you can try re-printing to a new PDF - but usually the PDF will get larger, and may lose quality as pictures get re-compressed again) - which is why you are noticing a loss in quality. Often the original "object-based" PDF gets converted to a bitmap, which is why they do not look quite as good when zoomed in. Things are made worse by the fact that the PDF reader allows you to zoom in closer than what can be seen by the naked eye on a printed page. Therefore, what may look "bad" on the screen might actually print to a sheet of paper quite nicely.
So, to answer your question, no, you are not missing anything. That command has no quality settings, and generally, should print to a physically attached printer and look identical to the original PDF file. I am looking at improving the rendering engine that does the printing to better handle PDF files that contain Type3 and Ascii85 encoded fonts. So, if your output appears with text messing, this update will fix this problem (which is thankfully rare).
If you are truly taking already existing PDF files, and trying to re-print them to new PDF files, and you decide to use the Windows API commands, please make sure that you have Adobe's Reader v8.0 or v8.1 installed as they have fixed problems that exist with v5, v6 and v7 which were causing the PDF not to re-print at all, and resulted in blank pages.
Cheers!
------------- Michel Korwin-Szymanowski
EXP Systems LLC
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